Well, I must say these promised posts have been flowing out like cold molasses!

I guess it’s better to be slow than to not write at all!

Anyhow…
As some of you undoubtedly know already (especially if you follow Red Worm Composting) I decided to take a leap of faith and start up my own ‘real world’ eco-business this spring - focused primarily on a topic that is near and dear - COMPOSTING!!

Initially, my main activities have involved selling vermicomposting supplies (worms, bins, kits etc), but I am slowly expanding from there. I will be focusing primarily on selling in my own region (Southwestern Ontario) and in Canada in general. As such, I decided to put together a new website called Worm Composting Canada.

Luckily I’ve been able to connect with a great supplier in the U.S. as well so I’ve even been able to sell to U.S. customers (essentially a separate business altogether) - this has certainly helped, since much of my website traffic comes from the U.S. The one limitation of the U.S. biz is that I am only currently selling composting worms (am looking into dropshipping for other products however).

So far it has been a very interesting experience to say the least, and I am SO glad I finally decided go for it. Originally I had planned to wait until I had a larger property (preferably in the country), but I finally just got sick of planning for some future date. At the risk of sounding cheesy, this is the sort of business I’ve always dreamed about owning one day, so it’s been pretty exciting thus far.

One thing I’ve really loved about the new gig is the fact that it’s allowed me to get outside and do a lot more composting/gardening work this year - thus giving plenty of ideas for blog topics (the sad irony is that I now have less time for writing). As mentioned in my recent update post, I am now working with a local restaurant to help divert a fair bit of their food waste (more about that in an upcoming post). It is far more material than I’ve ever had available for composting so it has been an interesting experience to say the least. It has certainly provided me with a great opportunity for various composting experiments (some working out really well - others, not so much! haha).

Anyway, I’m really excited to see where this business takes me, and have little doubt that it will (as mentioned) provide me with plenty of good material to write about…hopefully I can just learn to write a little faster.

Technorati Tags: worm composting, vermicomposting, red worms, worm bins, composting, ontario, canada

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I’m happy to report that I’ll be providing you with another ‘feast’ of new posts soon.

I’ve been really busy with lots of ‘real world’ activities, and very soon I’ll be able to get back to the computer and tell you all about it.

Here’s what’s coming down the pipe:

1) My New Business Venture - From the virtual world to the real world, Compost Guy is ready to make his mark!

2) Community Composting Initiative - Learn about my partnership with a very popular local restaurant, and what I am doing with 100’s of pounds of their food waste each week.

3) Make Your Own Pet Poop Composter - I’ve written previously about pet waste composting. Well now I’m going to show you how to make your very own pet waste composting system.

4) In Situ Vermicomposting - Last summer I had a huge tomato plant growing out of the side of my large outdoor worm bin. This year I’m taking in situ composting to a whole new level.

5) My new lawn mower - I finally said good bye to my emission-spewing, gas-guzzling hunk-a-junk, and said hello to a sleek new rechargeable. My impression after testing it out? AWESOME!

6) Fun With Biobags - A while back I wrote about my purchase of some cornstarch polymer ‘Biobags’ to test out in my compost bins. I’ve been doing exactly that for the last few weeks, with some pretty cool results!

7) Suburban Aquaponics - Going even further back into the archives, I promised everyone that I was going to set up my own aquaponics system. Originally it was going to be an indoor system, but unfortunately the project just never got started (other than me planning it out and purchasing some of the key supplies). I am now hoping to try out a small outdoor system. Should be fun!

So there you have it! I’m sure there will be other posts along the way - but these are some of the exciting things I want to tell you very soon.

Stay tuned!

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For the record, to the rumors about me ‘finding the edge of the earth and falling off’ have been greatly exaggerated!

All joking aside, I do apologize for the lapse in posts over the last little while! I’ve been taking a wee bit of a holiday since last week, and have also been busily absorbed in the planning stages of an exciting new venture, which you will certainly hear a lot more about in coming weeks.

I have also been dusting off the cobwebs from my Compost Guy vermicomposting section, which I had actually intended to publish quite some time ago (surprise, surprise). While certainly still a work-in-progress, my new Worm Composting Basics page is now ready for visitors. Originally I thought it would be rather redundant to have a vermicomposting page on this site when I have an entire site dedicated to the topic, but then I realized that there are probably a lot of people who are simply looking for a decent worm composting overview - not necessarily the ‘whole enchilada’!

For those of you already actively (or at least familiar with) vermicomposting, it may not be all that exciting - but my hope is that it will help newcomers gain a basic understanding of the process and get pointed in the right direction should they be interested in learning more.

Technorati Tags: worm composting, vermicomposting, worm bin, red worms, red wigglers, composting worms, vermicompost, worm castings

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Hopefully I won’t have to worry about hosting again for a LONG time!

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I’ll definitely get back into the swing of things tomorrow (technically later today - Jan 24th) so we can put all this behind us!

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As mentioned recently, we’ve been having some major issues with our current webhost and have been looking for greener pastures!

Well, the good news is that I have a new account elsewhere (and I’m very optimistic that there will be far fewer hassles there), but alas the bad news is that I need to move the site, which of course means MORE downtime for Compost Guy!

When it comes down to it, I should be thanking my lucky stars that A) I signed up for a monthly plan with the current host (rather than saving some money with a yearly plan) and B) This all happened when the site was still relatively new, so I won’t likely lose too many readers (and hopefully all my regular readers will get this msg.

My aim is to make this as fast and pain free as possible. I need to redirect my domain to new nameservers (which may sound like ‘Greek’ to some of you) - that’s actually what will result in the downtime (since there is inevitably some time required for the domain to get ‘hooked up’ to the hosting provider. At least once that is finished I can put up a temporary page until everything else is taken care of.

Anyway, I’ll likely start the process later today so the site may appear to be offline.
Hopefully everything goes according to plan and I have it up and running again tomorrow!

Thanks very much for your patience. It’s all UP from here - I promise!

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Needless to say, I’ll be shopping for a new webhosting company in coming weeks, and will be doing some major backups to make sure I am ok if anything serious happens (plus will be helpful for the move to new server).

Lots I want to write about this week - I am long overdue for a Winter Composting update for starters!!

Anyway, I’ll definitely get back to it tomorrow!
Thanks for your patience!

Bentley

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I just wanted to take the time to wish everyone a happy holiday season! I won’t likely write any new posts for at least the next few days.
Stay safe have fun!

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Back at the end of September we talked about how Garden Girl is “back”. She had announced her partnership with Farmers Almanac and her plans to create a bunch of new videos.
At the time the one thing that still needed a little TLC was her website. Well, I’m very happy to report that Patti’s new website is now live, and it looks FANTASTIC! I encourage everyone to go check it out and have a look around.

You should sign up for her newsletter as well so that you can keep up to date and informed. She sends out periodic updates of her progress, and is always sure to add lots of other interesting tidbits.

Anyway, that’s all for now, but we’ll certainly have more Garden Girl updates here in the future.

Oh, and for the record, we came up with our names independently! There is no conspiracy afoot!

Technorati Tags: garden girl, sustainable living, gardening, patti moreno, farmers almanac

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My goal is to get into a much more regular posting schedule along with beefing up the website. Big on the agenda of things to talk about is my ‘Winter Composting Extravaganza’. Winter has indeed arrived up here in the ‘Great White North’ (aka Canada), and luckily I took some steps to get my outdoor bin ready for the cold months ahead. I’ll provide an update about that very soon!

I also will be adding some of the other planned sections of the site, starting with an introduction to composting (a basic guide to getting started).

Anyway, I don’t want to waste too much time on writing this post - the time is better spent bringing you the ‘good stuff’!

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